Name: Braised Fowl
Ingredients: 1 fowl, dressed and cleaned; 1½ inch cube of fat salt pork; 1 small onion, sliced; 4 slices of carrot; 2 sprigs of parsley; ½ bay leaf; 2 cups boiling water; 2 tablespoons flour; Cold water (for thinning flour)

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Fowl

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fowl

Stuff and truss the fowl.
Render the fat from the pork in a pan and remove scraps.
Sauté the fowl in the pork fat until browned on all sides, turning frequently.
Transfer the fowl to a trivet in a deep pan.

Braise

In the same pan, cook the onion, carrot, parsley, and bay leaf in the remaining fat for 3 minutes.
Add 2 cups of boiling water to the pan, cover, and bake at 300°F (150°C) until tender, basting every 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

To make the sauce, strain the stock from the pan, remove the fat, and thicken with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed with cold water to form a smooth paste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fowl: Is the main protein; braising in liquid keeps the meat moist and tender as it cooks.
Flour: Thickens the strained stock into a sauce when mixed smooth with cold water first.
Fat salt pork: Provides rendered fat for browning the fowl, adding savoury flavour to the pan.

The step that matters

Sautéing the fowl until browned on all sides. Browning creates flavourful compounds through the Maillard reaction, which builds the colour and taste of the finished braise. Turning often helps the skin brown evenly instead of scorching in one spot.